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“Experience the Digital World you have yet to imagine in 2^nd year!”

This is the headline I created for the 1^st-year students about the 2^nd-year digital classes in this program because I wanted to get the 1^st years excited about the classes. In the headline, I demonstrate that these classes are an opening to a digital world that they have yet to experience. When first-year students read the headline, they will instantly be curious about this because it is something that is yet to come if they continue in this program. This headline creates a sense of wonder to the 1^st year students that gets them excited for the things that they will learn in the 2^nd year digital classes.

a. Provide the headline

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b. Provide an overview of the elements missing in the instructions required for this task.

One of the elements missing from the instructions for this task was that it didn’t include specifically what these high school students are interested in. There were missing elements to the instructions which would’ve allowed for me to develop more precise headlines which my audience would care about. I was provided limited information on the high school students whom I am targeting. For example, I may have a section of my audience who is not interested in post-secondary education. Whatever I use as a headline will not matter much because some of them are not interested.

c. Explain the headline you created, why, and any other reasons/justifications you need to provide to me for the headline you created. (6 Marks)

For this headline I created for the SCC Advertising Program, I mostly considered what my audience would like to see. Knowing that my audience was high school students who were about to graduate. I tried to tie a sense of urgency to my headline. At the end of my headline, I include “register now before it’s too late”. This brings a sense of urgency to my headline, which will prompt my audience to take a closer look at what is being offered. This works because knowing my audience, as high school students, they don’t want to miss out on anything which could help them. This is why including scarcity in my headline will encourage my audience to think deeper about the program. In the start of my headline, I ask a question which asks “unsure?”. I included this to try and engage with my audience and lure them in with the question. This question is effective because it asks the general question of how most high school students who are about to graduate feel. This way, I develop a more personal connection with my audience as they realize that I’m aware of how they are currently feeling.

“60,000 Volkswagen and Audi electric cars recalled. Here’s why.”

For this headline, I wanted to keep it roughly the same as the original headline, but with the newly crafted headline, I didn’t include the reasoning for the cars being recalled and instead include a call to action to get the user to click on the headline to read the article and learn why they were recalled. I did this because I found that the headline could potentially reveal too much information about what the article could be about and summarized the article to an extent where some would just read the headline and think that is all they have to know. With my newly created headline. I bring a more alluring attribute to the story, which will make more people click it. I kept the inclusion of “60’000” because I felt that that was still a big enough number, and without an explanation in the headline, it would create more of a mystery to the headline. The entire premise of the newly created headline is to lure people in with the limited information given in the headline and get them to wonder why so many cars had been recalled.

“Why your electric Volkswagen or Audi may be recalled”

This headline was created to spark interest in the user by giving them a sense of worry that there may be something wrong. This headline will mostly target those who already own electric Volkswagens or Audis because it has more targeted language. The premise of this headline is to convince the owners of these vehicles that their cars could potentially be recalled. However, we don’t include enough information in the headline to tell them why. This is why people would more likely click the headline to read the article because they want to figure out the reasoning for the recall. The elements of this headline are that we use limited information but selective wording to convince users to click on the headline.

“Some electric cars face risk of rollaway, asking to be recalled”

This headline is different from the other three because it doesn’t include the type of brand of electric car which are facing a risk of rolling away. The headline was made this way because it captures a broader audience of people who don’t just specifically own Volkswagens and Audis. This is a good headline because I believe that this is an article that everyone who owns an electric car should read. The exclusion of the type of brand of electric car gives more incentive for people who own electric cars in general to read the article and click the headline. The headline, unlike the other two headlines, includes the reason for the recall of the car. This was included because I thought it would balance out the exclusion of the brand of electric cars in the headline. I essentially didn’t want to exclude too little information in my headline and risk the user skipping over my headline completely, but also not include too much information in the headline and risk the user getting everything they are asking for from the headline. This headline balances the right amount of information given to the user to make the user curious enough to click.

Headlines are important in web content because they help draw in the user’s attention and get them to invest their time in the article. A good headline will catch a user’s attention instantly because it uses convincing language and attention-drawing info. A headline which I clicked on recently was “Over 60,000 Volkswagen and Audi electric cars recalled for risk of rollaway.”. The reason I clicked on this headline is that I have recently been looking to get a car and have first been deciding what brand of car I should get, this is important because there are a lot of car brands, and I don’t want to pick a brand which has a bad reputation for faulty mechanics. With that in mind, this headline aligned well with what I was currently looking into and would help educate me on something that I should avoid. I clicked this headline because it used numbers, which were big so that you would notice that it was a considerable number of cars which were called back. Another reason why I clicked on this headline is because I have a lot of friends who drive Volkswagen. This was a convincing headline because it aligned with my personal life and would make me share the article with my friends to help educate them. Also, this headline was not too long and gave good insight into what the article would be about. This is a good quality in a headline and a reason why I clicked it because the headline demonstrated just enough information to catch my attention, but not too long of a headline to where I would lose interest entirely.

The headline was representative of the article which I read. The headline gave me direct insight into what exactly I would expect to read in the article. Before coming across this article, I was not aware of the A$AP Rocky gun trial. This is why the headline was representative of the content within the article. The headline was able to give me a digestible and understandable introduction to the article. After reading the article, I was more informed on the situation and could explain the situation to someone if I needed to. The headline was an effective representation of the article because after reading the article, I was informed on anything that I was questioning when I first read the headline. An effective headline will make the reader question it and, as a result, click to read more.

A recent headline that I came across that I thought was great and resonated with me was “A$AP Rocky gun trial to begin in Los Angeles”. The reason that this headline resonated with me was because the headline was very effective in catching my immediate attention. It does this by giving the reader a tiny insight into the article by making the headline alluring. Anyone who knows music or is interested in the rap scene has heard of A$AP Rocky. I think a reason that this headline caught my attention is because it is a headline that you are not expecting. A$AP Rocky is a leading figure in the fashion music community and has established himself as a homely and caring figure. This can be backed by the fact that he has kids with Rihanna, which plays into this idea. This is why this headline is so alluring and attention-grabbing. You don’t expect to see a figure such as A$AP Rocky in this kind of situation; this is what made me and so many other people click this article. This headline is effective because it makes the reader question if it’s true. This is a good headline because it gives the reader a taste of what the article will be about. A good headline will have context to the content in the article so that it makes you interested and wanting to read more. All of these elements of the headline are things that make it effective and the reason that it resonated with me so much. It also helps that the headline is short and digestible so that I can quickly look at it and instantly understand what the article will be about.